50 million meals sold in 80+ countries

Woah! We hope that’s the reaction you had when you read that! 50,000,000[1] meals have been sold to Hueligans across the globe. That’s a lot of meals and a lot of nutrition; 25,000,000,000 calories to be precise, which is the equivalent of 11,500,000 day’s worth of complete nutrition, or 31,000 years if you ate as much as 2,000kcal each day.[2]

And that’s great, sure, but what does that mean for you? And what does that mean for the planet?

That’s the equivalent of filling 33 shipping containers to the brim.[4] When you look at all the initiatives that can help reverse climate change, reducing food waste is the third most impactful action (behind better refrigerant management and increasing onshore wind power).[5] And so much of this waste happens in our homes. In fact, the average person wastes 66lbs of food per year – we’re looking at you pre-packaged salad. Huel Powder has a 12-month shelf life, which means instead of throwing it away a few days after opening you can keep it in your cupboard for whenever you need it.

Over a 500,000lbs reduction in plastic packaging waste[6] – yes, including our Ready-to-drink.

That’s over 2,500 very full and very large trash cans worth of plastic waste.[7] It can be easy to look at Huel and just see plastic packaging, but when we decide to use plastic we decide to use it for the right reasons – like extending our shelf life so we can reduce food wastage. However, when you look at all the Huel we have sold and compare that to the amount of plastic packaging thrown away in the average household the differences are stark. The average household has 2.3 people in[8] and they produce 154lbs of waste a year, of which 64lbs is plastic waste – that amounts to 442 tons of plastic waste. For the same amount of food, Huel have produced less than 187 tons of packaging.

It’s a Sunday afternoon and you fancy a leisurely jog. You might find yourself running at a steady pace of 5mph for about an hour and after that hour you might have burned off a casual 560cals. Now, this might inspire you to run a little longer, perhaps 44,642 hours longer, which would send you round the earth close to 9,000 times - talk about a weekend warrior. But to do this you’d need 50,000,000 Huel meals. That’s 25,000,000,000cals from slow-release, plant-based sources of carbohydrates, protein and fats - not just any old pure sugar-loaded energy.

You’ve saved yourselves 762 years. Enough to build the Empire State Building 678 times.

Huel takes less than a minute to make, which is pretty awesome when you consider the average person spends 37 minutes prepping food per day.[10] Add on a meager one hour allocated to food shopping each week and that quickly racks up to over 5 hours a week[11] – we haven’t even considered the amount of time washing up. But you thrifty Hueligans can take that time and sit back and relax, or get out and do something you love, instead of waiting for a new checkout to open at the supermarket.

Better for you, better for the planet.

OK, we know you’re not going to run around the earth 9,000 times, and we know that those 33 shipping containers of food waste are split across hundreds of thousands of Hueligans, but what we’re saying is that even the smallest action, when adopted by many, can have an impact bigger than you can imagine.

By choosing Huel as a convenient and nutritious meal, even a few times a week, you can change the world. The greatest journey starts with the smallest step. Take our starter pack of Huel Powder for instance. On average this will result in 530g less food waste and an extra 4 hours of time for you.

References

Data taken from Huel Shopify accounts

Based on 500kcal meals at 2000kcal per day for 31,000 years

Average food waste equals 67lbs/person/year. This equals 943478.26kg over 31,000 years. During our production of Huel Powder we only waste approximately 0.1%. Due to Huel's long shelf-life, consumers don't waste much either – so we've rounded our estimate up to 1%, which equates to 0.028lbs per meal. Across 50,000,000 meals, the difference between this and the average person is almost 2,000,000lbs of food waste

375lbs of waste is produced per person per year, of which 19% is food packaging (71lbs). 41% of plastic waste is from food packaging which equals 29lbs of plastic waste per person per year at 2000kcal per day. For the equivalent amount of Huel sold (31,000 years worth of food) you would have created 905070lbs of plastic waste. When this is compared to the amount of plastic contained in that 31,000 years of Huel we have sold so far you would have created 368648lbs; a saving of 536,422lbs

37 minutes prepping food per day, 7 times per week plus an estimation that a person spends 1 hour per week shopping for food equals 5.3 hours/week or 0.76 hours/day. Based on estimation that it takes 10 minutes to make 2000kcal of Huel = 0.17 hours/day